Drugs, gun seized during search of Gifford home | Photos, Video

Investigators with the Sheriff's Office multi-agency enforcement unit made one arrest and seized drugs and a handgun early Saturday while searching a Gifford home in the same block where a man was found dead last month, according to the Sheriff's Office.

Deandre Love

INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — Investigators with the Sheriff’s Office multi-agency enforcement unit made one arrest and seized drugs and a handgun early Saturday while searching a Gifford home in the same block where a man was found dead last month, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

Deandre Love, 32, was arrested on charges related to drugs and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon after investigators executed a search warrant at a home in the 3800 block of 44th Place.

That’s the same block where on May 28 the body of Dominique Dawson, 27, was found. Dawson, who was born and raised in Gifford, was living with friends in Lakewood Park in St. Lucie County. He died of a gunshot wound.

Sgt. Eric Flowers, Indian River County Sheriff’s Office spokesman, said Saturday that detectives are working to see whether there is a connection between Dawson’s death and the home where the search warrant was served. Dawson’s body was found within a few homes of where the search warrant was served, Flowers said.

“We are just trying to get to the bottom of what happened out there,” Flowers said of the Dawson homicide. “Our (multi-agency enforcement) unit is working completely in conjunction with our homicide detectives trying to figure out more clues, what happened out there that night and to see if there’s somebody else who knows something.”

When investigators early Saturday searched the home, they found methamphetamine, heroin, the drug known as Molly, a loaded .40 caliber handgun, drug paraphernalia and 12.5 grams of an “unidentified substance” that will be sent to the regional crime laboratory for identification.

Flowers said the handgun will be examined to see whether it could be linked to the Dawson killing.

Still, he said there has been more than one case of gunfire on the street.

“Who knows, it might be connected to another shooting incident we’ve had sometime in the recent past,” Flowers said.

Flowers said Love is “somebody that we’ve known in Gifford for quite a while.”

According to the sheriff’s website, Love has been booked into the county jail more than 12 times since 2006.

Flowers encouraged anyone with information on the Dawson slaying to come forward.

“Our detectives have worked tirelessly on the Dawson homicide since it happened,” Flowers said. “Some people have come forward but the information provided at this time hasn’t been enough for us to make an arrest.”

Love, of the 4500 block of 33rd Avenue in Vero Beach, was held Saturday in the Indian River County jail without bail.